Phila. Fed Buys $5M of Unisys Check Systems

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has purchased $5 million in check processing hardware and software from Unisys Corp.

The bank, which processes about 3.5 million items daily, had been on an International Business Machines Corp. platform since the mid-1970s.

Blake D. Prichard, a senior vice president in charge of the bank's check services, said the platform paves the way for "new classes of customer services in the future, like image-based item processing and electronic check presentment."

"Our imaging would be bulk image services for payor banks. We'd be the capture site for banks that perhaps can't afford image yet," Mr. Prichard said.

Its payor bank services also will be enhanced on several fronts, Mr. Prichard said, because the new platform gives Fed member banks on-line access to check data for the first time.

The Fed's payor bank services, which it hopes to integrate with its future imaging capabilities, are transmissions of account summary totals, or magnetic ink character recognition details of checks it has received.